Black bear sightings in communities throughout South Central Kentucky have risen in recent weeks, though Kentucky Fish and Wildlife officials say this is a typical part of male bears’ annual migrations.
The latest documented sighting in recent weeks came from Kerry Stinson’s trail cameras on Halifax Road inHis camera captured a young male black bear toppling a deer feeder in his nearby woods.
“They send me notifications every morning of what’s on there, and I was eating breakfast and I just looked down and saw I had a notification, so I opened it, and this feeder was laying on the ground, so I was like, ‘Well why’s my feeder over?’ So, I went back through the pictures and there was a bear, and it kind of made my day,” Stinson recollected.
Heather Gardner released this statement on behalf of the district:
“This morning, there was a minor accident on Trojan Trail involving a stationary bus” the statement reads..” Although emergency and school personnel assessed the students at the scene, and initially, students reported no injuries, some students have since disclosed experiencing discomfort or minor injuries after arriving at school. No one was transported from the scene by ambulance, but the driver of one of the other vehicles involved did go to the emergency room to have injuries assessed.”
On May 3 the Glasgow Police Department responded to an injury accident on Trojan Trail after a Barren County School bus was struck by a 2006 Nissan Pathfinder, who was attempting to make a left turn onto Trojan Trail.
Officers determined that the Nissan Pathfinder was operated by Larry Gibson of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Gibson “pulled into the path” of a 2007 Chevy Trailblazer that was operated by Glaswegian Layla Smith, which “caused her vehicle to collide with the Barren County Bus being operated by Brian Long of Cave City Ky.”
According to the release there were 30 students on the bus at the time of the crash.
Smith was treated for facial injuries and one student was treated for back pain. Neither Gibson nor Long suffered any injuries.
At the time of publication no additional information has been provided by Heather Gardner, public relations assistant for the school district
A Barren County School District bus waiting on Trojan Trail to drop kids off for their day of school was involved in a collision involving “two personal vehicles,” according to Terry Flatt, public information officer at the Glasgow Police Department.
Detail are scarce thus far, according to Flatt. Heather Gardner, public relation assistant for the school district said she is currently en route to the high school to collect the most accurate information regarding the crash.
“It was a minor accident,” Heather Gardner, public relations assistant for the district. “More information is upcoming. Everything that’s been reported to me was that the bus was stationary.”
Flatt said the road is back open and only “minor injuries” were reported.
“There were minor injuries but nothing life threatening,” Flatt said.
They send me notifications every morning of what’s on there, and I was eating breakfast and I just looked down and saw I had a notification, so I opened it, and this feeder was laying on the ground, so I was like, ‘Well why’s my feeder over?’ So, I went back through the pictures and there was a bear, and it kind of made my day,” Stinson recollected.
He shared that the bear visited his feeder around 6 a.m. before moving on. Two days later, he said another Allen County man spotted the same bear on a road roughly 15 miles away, and another sighting placing the bear in a nearby soybean field.
John Hast, a coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife’s bear and elk program, shared these sightings are not unheard of during the summer.
“Usually these are younger bears, they will live with mom for about the first year and a half of life. And when breeding season kicks up, usually about the end of May or first of June is when they start getting the boot,” Hast explained. “So, mom’s kind of kicking them out of the nest and then some of the more dominant black bears are running into them and, you know, they know they’re not going to win that fight. So, they go looking for a mate in some fresh territory.”
While the bears seen in nearby communities are likely only passing through and will journey back to the mountains at the end of breeding season, Hast believes these sightings could become more common as nearby populations continue to grow.
“Tennessee’s bear population is very much Middle Tennessee, like due south of your area is expanding a lot. So, these may not necessarily be, say, Kentucky bears from around Somerset or something like that,” Hast said. “They could be kind of those Middle Tennessee bears coming north a little bit. I’d say your nearest, say, breeding population where female bears are living is kind of down in the Cumberland County, like Burkesville or Dale Hollow Lake area, most likely.”
Black bears sighted outside of their typical range should be admired from a safe distance. They can also be reported to the Kentucky Dept. of Fish and Wildlife to assist in their continued monitoring of nearby populations.
Leave a Reply